Computerized Brain Training Fails a Test

To keep the mind sharp as we age, we should “exercise” it regularly, according to a large body of research that has accumulated in recent decades. Just as with preserving muscle strength, the mantra is “use it or lose it.” In fact, a growing number of computerized brain-training games are sold to people who seek to preserve their intellect.

A British team recruited 11,340 viewers of a popular BBC science program to engage in an online brain-training experiment during a 6-week period. Participants (age range, 18–60) underwent a broad set of cognitive tests at baseline and were allocated randomly to three online-exercise groups: The first focused on reasoning, planning, and problem-solving tasks; the second focused on broader tasks of memory, attention, mathematics, and other skills; and the third (control) searched online for answers to obscure questions. After 6 weeks, groups one and two definitively improved their performance on their specifically assigned brain-training games, but they showed no improvement (compared with the control group) when they repeated the more general cognitive testing that had been done at baseline.